


What Silent Love Hath Writ

by elleorwhatever



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Post Trespasser, Slow Burn, Solavellan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-17 12:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5868868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleorwhatever/pseuds/elleorwhatever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“I’m no longer the leader of the Inquisition.  What remains of it, anyway.  The others don’t think my judgement can be trusted anymore.” She smiled, not meeting Michel’s eyes.  “And I agree with them.”</em><br/> <br/>After The Exalted Council, Aoife Lavellan is at a loss.  She decides to go on a journey, and Michel de Chevin, former champion to Empress Celene, joins her.  Ostensibly, her purpose is to publish a book of poetry; poetry she intends to be read by someone far and away.  But there are other goals at play.  Dealing with the potential destruction of the world, for one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Part One**

 

 

> _Then if he thrive and I be cast away,  
>  The worst was this; my love was my decay.  –  Shakespeare_

Even more than the amputated arm, the members of the Inquisition had seen the results of the Exalted Council in the Inquisitor’s face.

She was always wearing her feelings, her thoughts, like an Orlesian courtier wore his masks; ever-changing and always communicating her intentions to the world at large.  It was part of why so many placed their trust in her.  So they saw her hurt, her shame, and her regret when she announced to them – her soldiers, her scouts, cooks, and believers – that the Inquisition was formally disbanding.

The next few weeks, life went on as usual, but things were quieter now.  There were still soldiers drilling in the yards, the Chant being sung, laughter falling out of the tavern.  But it was all touched with quiet anticipation of the coming end.

Michel rapped his knuckles on the frame of Commander Rutherford’s open office door.

“You called for me, Ser?”

“Michel, come in,” the Commander said. “Have a seat.”

The office was not messy, exactly, just sort of under-furnished.  Like someone occupied it who had been too distracted to properly fill the large room with personal effects.  It was exacerbated by the crates of books and the empty shelves.

Rutherford himself was looking at the letters and other papers laid across his desk.  Michel could tell, with an unnoticed, quick glance, that they were in the Commander’s hand addressed to several Lord and Lady so-and-so’s.  If he had a mask, he’d have been able to let his gaze linger a little, discern a little more, but Michel had not worn an Orlesian mask in some time.  In truth, he did not know if he wanted to anymore.

The Commander was rubbing the back of his neck the way he did when he had to deal with a matter that didn’t involve bashing the problem’s head in.  Rutherford was a simple man.  Very Fereldan.  It’s part of what made serving under him, serving the Inquisition itself, so appealing.  Michel could just be a sword that cut down demons.  Easy.

No need to worry about his own beliefs, his motivations.  Who he was.

“I’ve noticed you haven’t asked for a recommendation yet,” Rutherford was saying.

Michel nodded. “I haven’t.”

“I don’t think I need to tell you, but you’ve been invaluable to me here,” the Commander said. “Your experience and skill.  The Inquisition owes you a great deal.  Wherever you wish to go, I’ll be happy to sing your praises to.”

“That’s kind of you, Ser,” Michel said. “But I’m still undecided.”

Rutherford smiled ruefully. “This place has been a home, hasn’t it?  When we began the Inquisition, it was – transformative.  And now that it’s ending…”

“Where will you go, Ser?  If you do not mind my asking.”

The Commander sighed. “First, I’ll go home.  I haven’t seen my family in some years.  Then?  I don’t rightly know.  I could find another posting, but…”

“But the Inquisiton _meant_ something, didn’t it?” Michel offered.

“It did.”

He leaned back and looked at Michel.  Rutherford was thinking about telling him something, something he may not strictly _should_ tell him if his flickering gaze and tightened lips were anything to go by.  It still sometimes amazed Michel how much people outside of the great Game told you in their face.

“There may be a – a sort-of posting available soon, if you can’t decide on anything else.”

Michel said nothing, listening politely.

“Temporary, most likely.  With the Inquisition disbanding, the Inquisitor has decided to do some travelling.  Sight-seeing and such.  A bit of personal business.  She’s said she wants to go alone, but we’re concerned.”

“Her position as Inquisitor, even former Inquisitor, makes her a target,” Michel said. “They may have been quieted, but there are still those who believe her a heretic.”

“Yes,” the Commander said. “And with your experience as Celene’s champion…  Well, this all depends on what you want to do.  And if we could convince her to have you along.”

It was the sort of thing he knew how to do.  Prevent assassinations.  Play the lady’s guardian.  It would be so easy to slip into that role again.  Throw himself into loyalty, define himself by his stalwart chivalry.

But something about Rutherford’s gaze told Michel that there was more.   _Sight-seeing and personal business._  The Commander’s instinct to not tell him about this was correct; he should have left it to Sister Nightingale.  But then, she probably did not trust him.  She may believe Michel’s past connection to Celene made him vulnerable to a _future_ connection to the Empress.

But she’d be incorrect.  He could no longer be the man who had lived in silent, paralyzing fear by Celene’s side.  He could not be the man who had hid the fact of his bastard birth to an impoverished elven mother.  His honor as a chevalier had been hollow from the beginning, and he did not know what to put in its place.

Years ago, before the Inquisition defeated Corypheus, the Inquisitor had approached Michel in the middle of training.

“Do you know a Lady Colombe?”

He laid down his blade. Pulling off his gloves, he wiped his brow.  The Inquisitor was looking at him with a cautious set to her eyes, a bit of nervous flush in her cheeks.  But her complexion was always flushed, as if she was always charged with strong emotion that bubbled over in her blood.

She still had her facial markings then.   _Vallaslin_.

“Lady Inquisitor.  I do,” Michel said. “One of Empress Celene’s handmaids.”

The Inquisitor nodded. “She is here, at Skyhold.”

He raised his brow at that.

“She says that Celene regrets breaking her friendship with you and wishes to reconcile.  Through Lady Colombe.”

Michel was silent.

The Inquisitor peered at him, curious. “So you make something out of that, too.  Leliana said Celene wanted to use her connection to you, and your connection to us.  That we should press her for her direct communication.”

“And, I’m sure Sister Nightingale said to keep this secret from me,” Michel said, taking up his blade again.

“Yes.”

“You should listen to your spymaster, Inquisitor,” he said.  He went through a set of swings and parries.

“So you’re going to be the Empress’s spy, now?” she smiled.

“No, but you know from your visit to the Winter Palace that the Game is always played for the highest stakes.  The advice of someone so well-versed in its rules is valuable.”

Michel thrust at an invisible enemy. “I never told you fully why I am no longer Celene’s champion.  I was blackmailed into forfeiting a duel I was fighting on her behalf.  I am not a noble.  My mother was a knife-ear.”

The Inquisitor’s eyes widened at the slur.  She attempted to shut away her expression, but he saw it anyway: the shock, anger, confusion.  Her flush deepened.

“What did you think your honesty would buy you, Inquisitor?”

She was quiet.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she said finally. “Or attempt to buy your loyalty.  But I hope I have earned it by my actions.”

Michel sighed.  An Orlesian would have been hinting at what happened with Imshael.  But the Inquisitor meant something else.  About her culmination of well-intended actions.  Honorable, you could call it.  Not honorable by the chevalier’s code, but honorable by general consensus of morality.

“I am loyal to you, and the Inquisition,” Michel said. “You should follow the spymaster’s plan.  Celene will not reply.  And I would not want her to.  I can’t go back to that life.  A chevalier must be of noble blood, and honorable conduct.”

“You seem sure that you lack both.”

Michel said nothing.

The Inquisitor straightened.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry for your lost friendship.”

He inclined his head respectfully.

Two years later, Michel regretted his hostility then.  He looked back at Commander Rutherford across his desk.  He cleared his throat.

“I will think on it, Commander.  Thank you for letting me know.”

“Speak to the Inquisitor if you decide on it.”

They both stood, and shook hands.

Michel said, “It has been a privilege, Commander, to serve you and the Inquisition.”

Rutherford smiled.  Michel had noticed that the Commander smiled with sincerity these days.  He hadn’t, when they’d first met.

“And a worthier warrior, I have not known, Ser Michel.”

–

A few days later, Michel sought out the Inquisitor.

She was walking down the Great Hall, away from the door to Lady Montilyet's office.  She wore a face reminiscent of the one she wore when she announced the disbandment.

He thought about turning away from her, but she had already seen him looking at her and was approaching.

“Michel?  Did you need me?”  The Inquisitor adjusted her features.

“Yes, I wanted to ask you something, Inquisitor,” Michel said.

Ah.  A little flit of a grimace at his words.  She gestured down the Hall.

“Walk with me?”

“Of course,” he said.

She strode forward.  Michel had encountered several Dalish over the last two years, and it never failed that they were soft-footed in their steps, even the mages.  Grace born out of precise distribution of weight and physical awareness of surroundings.  The trained swordsman in him admired it.

This had been true of the Inquisitor, as well.  Until recently.  Her footing, as they left the Great Hall through the side door leading out to the garden, was stilted.  She was not used to the missing arm yet.

“I had a talk with the Commander the other day,” Michel said.

“Oh?” A touch of rust in her tone.  She was upset at Rutherford, then.  Perhaps Lady Montilyet as well, if she was coming from the War Room.

“He mentioned you had plans to travel.”

The gazebo was empty.  She leaned against one of its posts.  She sighed.

“I do.  I think I’ll leave soon, in fact.” She looked at him.

“Why did he tell you that?”

“He said that they were worried for you.  That traveling alone was not safe.  Some still bear you ill will, after all, Lady Herald.”

She turned away.  She was undoubtedly Dalish.  How many times had Michel seen elven servants slapped for turning their backs on human masters?

“So he wanted you to be my bodyguard?”

“Something like that.”

“You’ve said nothing about your own feelings about this.”

Michel sat down on a bench.  It was a casual act, one he was unused to.  He had never sat in Celene’s presence before she did.

“I have seen you fight.  I have no doubt you can protect yourself.  But assassinations are different.  Are you aware of how many plots Sister Nightingale has unraveled over the years?”

“No…”

“And.” Michel paused. “I do not know where to go now.  Perhaps I still need the purpose of serving you.  You have helped people when others squabbled amongst themselves.”

The Inquisitor looked at him. “You don’t even know where I am going, what I will do, and you want to come with me?”

Michel held her gaze. “Your actions have earned my loyalty.”

She sighed. “You should know the full truth, then.  Decide after that.”

“The Inquisition is formally disbanding,” she said. “But the core members are continuing operations.  We have one goal.  What Solas is planning… it’s too great and terrible.  We have to stop him.”

She swallowed, looking down.

“And.  I’m no longer the leader of the Inquisition.  What remains of it, anyway.  The others don’t think my judgement can be trusted anymore.”

She smiled, not meeting Michel’s eyes.  “And I agree with them.”

The disbandment announcement had coincided with rumors.  Rumors that the elven apostate who had been so well integrated into the Inquisition’s operations was a traitor, somehow involved with both Corypheus and the Qunari incident at the Exalted Council.  The same elven apostate who had been the Inquisitor’s lover.

When Solas left, the Inquisitor had changed.  She was distracted, even in the simplest conversations.  Sorrow dogged her expressions during every moment of idleness.  She withdrew.  The passage of time had helped, but now it seemed worse than ever.

Michel had assumed it was losing the Inquisition, but perhaps it was Solas again.

“What is this great and terrible thing Solas is planning?”

“It could mean the end of the world as we know it.”

Michel’s brow rose.  If she was jesting – but no, he could see it in her face, in the way it smoothed and became distant, her gaze looking far and away.  It was a look that saw immense horror and could find no response appropriate.

Still.  It was difficult to believe.

“And Commander Rutherford and Lady Montilyet don’t trust you to lead the fight against him?”

“No,” she said. “Leliana as well.  Cullen and Josie just spoke to me.  Gave me Leliana’s letter from Val Royeaux.  They’re going to lead in conjunction in my place.”

She ground a toe into the gazebo floor. “I’ll still be involved, but only as– as an agent.”

“You won’t be given all the information anymore,” Michel said.

The Inquisitor said nothing.  Truthfully, Michel agreed with the decision.  It was obvious that for a long, long time she had been heartsick.  He couldn’t imagine it, though.  He’d had his fair share of brief dalliances, but to be “in love”?  It seemed more of a weakness than anything; at one time Briala had been the undoing of Celene, and now Solas was the ruination of the Inquisitor.

He wondered if the woman considered her love worth the humiliation she suffered now.

And he wondered if his own humiliation, his own displacement from a lofty position, was worth it.  Worth the pledge he had not broken.

“If you would have me, I would follow you, Lady Inquisitor,” he said.

“Aoife.” She said this, straightening. “I’m not the Inquisitor anymore.  My name is Aoife.  And I don’t want a follower, a champion.  If you are coming with me, you go as a friend, Michel.”

Again, another casual act he was unskilled in.

“Aoife,” he said.

She smiled.  It was thin and stressed.  But she made the effort sincerely.

“I’ll probably be glad of the company.”

“Good.  I’ll start packing.  Where is the first stop?”

“We’re heading towards Kirkwall.  I want to visit Varric.  And publish a book.”

Michel involuntarily allowed a look of surprise to cross his face that would have had him laughed out of the smallest, meanest of Val Royeaux’s salons.

“You’ve written a book.”

“Yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

> _O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:_
> 
> _To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.   -    Shakepeare_

As a child, her favorite lesson had been the writing of Elvhen.

Some of these lessons Hahren had taught were with scrolls and halla skins made by Keepers a few generations past.  These were honest, simple things crafted by her people, the people who had dwelled in the very same aravels she did, people who walked the same paths she did.

The skins were tanned by hand, the oilskin of the scrolls pressed by hand.  On them were written legends of Elgar’nan, Andruil, Mythal.  There were songs longing for Arlathan, for Halamshiral.  Drawn at the edges of the scrolls were branches and vines and flowers.  These were pretty, and sometimes painted in faded blue ink, pink, emerald.  The skins had rampant hallas burnt into them, stylized shepherds trailing them.

These articles of writing were unique to each clan, and were passed down from Keeper to Keeper.  When they fell apart, the story would be rewritten on a new surface.  And that object would be passed down again until it, too, fell apart.

The scrolls tended to gather dust if there wasn’t a new First to teach.  So, they had a curiously childish quality to them, which Aoife had grown to despise.  Everything she was learning about history proved that a written language was the mark of an advanced civilization.  She much preferred the rare instance when the Lavellan aravels drew near an elven ruin, and Hahren would take her to inspect the inscriptions laid in stone there.

At some point she had started making charcoal rubbings of these inscriptions.  As the years wore on, her personal trunk in Hahren’s aravel overflowed with pieces of parchment covered in the shadow of the words of long dead ancestors.  Even when these words were faded, indecipherable or their meaning lost to the ages, she loved comparing phrases, teasing out a forgotten idiom, a clever metonymy.

In fact, the Inquisition had only aggravated this habit of Aoife’s.  So much traveling!  So many ruins explored!  So much to copy!  She’d even been able to work on learning ancient _dwarven_ ; she had a particularly interesting parargon’s eulogy from the Hissing Wastes--

“With all due respect, Inquisitor, the book…?   _Your_ book.”

Michel’s stony face said nothing, but his tone was a little annoyed.

Aoife cleared her throat. “Right.  But stop calling me that.”

Right.  She’d been telling Michel about her book.   _Not_ giving a lecture on dwarven inscriptions.

Growing up, Aoife’s hunger for reading material hadn’t been sated by these stone-written lines alone.  She’d begun picking up the odd, pulpy romance from passing merchants.  Then venturing into cities for popular serials, a worn copy of the Chant given to her for free from a kind sister, academic treatises.  She’d been a huge fan of Varric’s, but she wouldn’t embarrass herself by telling Michel how she’d reacted when they’d met.

Then.  The poetry.  It sang to her soul.  The poetry of humans sang to her soul, so accustomed to the rhythms of Elvhen.  Their passion, their tragedy, their romping lyrics and sometimes brutal, heavy-handed rhyming schemes -- all of it seemed more _real_ than her lines from ruins.  Really, there was only so many times you could read about Elgar’nan’s glorious glory.

So Aoife had taken to writing her own little poems.  Both in Common and Elvhen.  It was only in the past two years that she’d been really satisfied (well, _almost_ satisfied) by the products of her efforts.  And it was only in the last two years that she’d had a subject worth… Well.

Sometimes writing was a way for her to chase away dreams.  They weren’t even proper dreams, but like memories of memories; a phantom physical touch, a gaze burning her from leagues away.  They filled her with dread and longing.  Arlathan, Arlathan.  Touch me, touch me.  Please, please…

“So.  So, it’s love poetry.  You can guess who it’s about.”

Aoife brushed hair out of her hot face.  She coughed.

Michel’s fingers tapped the table in the Herald’s Rest where they were eating dinner; Aoife had not much felt like facing the Great Hall.

“May I look at the manuscript?”

Aoife smiled, nervous, sheepish. “Of course.  I’d like your opinion.”

It was true; she was devoted to improving her craft.  And she wanted the poems to be read.  It’s why she was publishing them.  She wanted her heart laid bare on pages sent to all corners of Thedas.  She wanted _him_ to read, and remember.

Michel was nodding.  Aoife had such a hard time reading him.  A curious composition of courtly chivalry, juxtaposed with a brusque, straightforward capability as a warrior.  And constantly underneath: an angry edge, a ragged sharpness.

It didn’t help that he was always so tightly controlled in his expressions and mannerisms.  It was annoying, and made her want to poke him a bit.

“As to everything else,” she waved her hand around.  “We’ll figure it out along the way.”

“Everything else?”

“You know.  Saving the world again and all.”

“You mean we’ll wait for orders,” Michel’s brow sank in irritation.

“Speaking of which, do you have orders?”

“What if I’m supposed to keep that secret?  All knifey-darky.”

“So you don’t have orders.”

Aoife laughed.  “No, you caught me!  No orders other than to do what I like for a little bit.”

Michel sat back, grimaced. “Let’s just get to Kirkwall and go from there.”

\--

“You were planning to _walk_ all the way to the Free Marches?” Michel asked.

“Well.  Yes.”

Aoife’s cheeks turned a peeved red. “Not across the Waking Sea, obviously.  But I _do_ have all the time in the world, now.  And you know.  I’m Dalish.  Walking is kind of our thing.”

Michel shook his head, and took the lead of Aoife’s usual mount from Master Dennet.  The horsemaster shook his head, went back to the barn.

“I’m not walking to Kirkwall,” Michel told her.

“I take back what I said about being friends.  Please be the quiet chevalier again.”

Michel led the gentle pony out into the courtyard.  It was a pleasant little thing, and with his unassuming gelding they would look like little more than casual travelers.  Which, apparently, was all they were in actuality.  For the time being.

Aoife stood, looking at him.  Michel offered his hand.

“My lady.” His tone was only half mocking.

She scrunched her nose, but took the help anyway.  With her hand, she clumsily pulled herself up, and when she threatened to fall back without the second hand to steady herself, Michel pushed her into the saddle.

“Thanks,” she said thinly.  She gripped the reigns.

Michel had asked around the camp followers (the stable hands, the cooks, the people who always saw everything) about the trip back from the Exalted Council, and learned that the Inquisitor had attempted a few times to ride back.  She had fallen, several times.  Eventually, she gave up and walked or rode in the caravan trailing the Inquisition guard.

But Michel was not walking to Kirkwall.

He jerked his chin up, indicating for Aoife to circle around the court.

Even before she uneasily directed her mount, he could see that her center of gravity was off.  She fell.

“Awwaaargghh,” Aoife said.

Michel walked away, and crouched against a wall.  He watched as she stood, slapping off dust.  The pony was looking at her placidly.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what?” Michel said.

“Are you going to help me up?”

“I thought I wasn’t your servant, your champion.”

She glared.

“You need to learn how to do it on your own.  What if bandits are falling on us, and I’m occupied with cutting them down?”

Aoife sighed.  She reached for the saddle again.  She pulled, jumped -- and fell on her ass.

At least she wore simple riding leathers, and not one of those elaborate Dalish getups.  Although, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her wear something like that.  She dressed like a shem now, and had for a long time, he thought.

She made a few more attempts at mounting before sitting for a while where she’d fallen.  Michel couldn’t see her face, but her back was heaving with heavy breaths.  The pony was grazing lazily.

“You need to work on your upper body strength,” he commented.

She said nothing.  Members of the Inquisition were passing by, from the merchant stalls, from the kitchens, from the stables, and they were watching the former Inquisitor with furtive eyes.  Aoife ignored them.

“Why don’t you get Dagna to make you some sort of--” Michel motioned with his arm, even though she was turned away from him.

“Some sort of--”

“I don’t want one.”

She said this with a surprisingly harsh tone.

The moment stretched between them.

She stood, dusted herself off, and tried again.

\--

The air in the Frostbacks, eternally white, crisp, cold, was awash with Skyhold’s autumn-colored vegetation.  Red, orange, gold.  Gilt on ice.

Michel wasn’t sure how it had happened, they hadn’t announced when Aoife and he were leaving, but the courtyards were littered with the remains of the Inquisition.  Their faces were turned up to them, varying looks of sadness, admiration, faces of farewell.  There were so few of them, and Skyhold so large; the people seemed smaller now.

Commander Rutherford and Lady Montilyet stood by Aoife’s pony, saying their farewells.  They were all that lingered of the Inquisitor’s inner circle.  Lady Montilyet was openly weeping.  Aoife leaned down to embrace her, Rutherford patting them on their backs.

Disentangling herself from them, Aoife nudged her mount beside Michel.  They nodded at one another.

As they approached the gate, the people murmured their own good-byes.  My Lady Herald’s, Andraste bless you’s, and soft fingers on the trailing edge of Aoife’s cloak.

They passed under the porticullis and had ridden some way down the path when Aoife sighed.

“Glad that shit’s over.”

\--

She could hardly say his name anymore.

To even think it in the morning was to bleed metaphorical blood of distraction and hurt all over her day.  She bled out desire for his presence all over the hours, bruised from lack of his laughter all over the minutes, agonized every second gone without looking in his eyes.

Aoife turned over, stilled her breathing.  She had taken the potion, but she still needed to allay her emotions.

“And this ward will last even when you are sleeping?” Michel grumbled.

“It lasts until I release it or I die,” she said. “Go ahead and keep watch if you want, but I’m not taking a turn.”

He was quiet, rustling in his tent.

Aoife willed her body to slow, to at least temper its tension if not release it completely.  She stared at the cross-hatched pattern of her tent’s weave, the tiny complexity soothing in its blandness.  There was no angry murmur of cicadas here, in the Frostbacks, at the onset of autumn.  No wailing frogs, no barking foxes.  It was cold, but a lightness, a haze was starting to wash her mind.  She breathed, pulled her blankets tighter.

She entered a deep and dreaming sleep.

She passed through into the Fade -- well, _passed_ was not accurate; it implies a physical motion, a physical change over time.  But this was a _transformation_ of existence.  A transformation summoned by her will.  It was a melting away of the physical world, the cool pallor of reality melting into the trembling, infinite potentialities of the Fade.

Aoife stood, as usual, at the edge of a paved, circular court.  Rustling, whispering vegetation softened the edges of the stone walls.  Birds called off in the distance.  A hushed smell of centuries-long inactivity mixed with the verdant headiness of unseen trees, vines, invasion of growth.  The light filtered down green and speckled with dust, pollen.

Aoife stood at the edge of a flat black circle.

Vir’abelasan.

Aoife stepped closer.  It had been over two years since she’d first seen it, and still, even in this Fade recreation, the dark deepness of it sank into her stomach and pulled.

She slid a foot into the disk of darkest night, and then another.  She walked forward, stifling her instinct to float her head above the surface.  She walked forward until she was swallowed whole by the absence of light.

Her body, or rather her mind’s projection of her self-awareness as an entity occupying physical space, wanted to keep walking.  But it wasn’t necessary.  The ritual of entering a Fade-made Well of Sorrows wasn’t even necessary.  Technically.  But it helped her to access the memories of the Vir’abelasan.  It was like the glowing blue rituals used to enter Mythal’s temple; a polite knock on the door of her own mind.  A door to a large, labyrinthine complex tacked on to the modest cottage of her mind.

Navigating the labyrinth had taken some practice.

It wasn’t like “reality” where you could just retrace your steps.  The vividness and complexity, the layers of feeling, sensation, for every memory had threatened to overwhelm her sense of self.  Her sense of being separate.  When she’d first drunk from the Well, it took all her will just to mentally scream her desperation to stop Corypheus.  The Well answered as if to a child, slowly explaining to her what to do.

In those days, she had sometimes woken, in the War Room, in the Herald’s Rest, out on the road, as if she’d been sleeping.  But she had apparently been making plans, conversing, fighting demons.  She’d had no memories of these times.  The Well’s memories had overtaken her.  It had been frightening, but the one person she could have asked--

No.  Not here.  Not in the Fade.

That path only led to danger here.  She had to be still and deep, like the Well.

Eventually, Aoife had had the idea to explore the Vir’abelasan by dreaming of it.  Learning to walk the Fade through dreaming had not been difficult; she’d already done so before, and the Well easily provided any other instruction.  This had been a simple technique to the ancient elves.

The Fade was a reflection of the dreamer’s mind.  She’d thought it would be difficult to recreate the ancient pool of collective consciousness, but it had appeared instantly as she willed it.  The Well had become apart of her.  By using the Fade as a frame through which to look at it, Aoife tricked herself into having control over it.

Over the past two years, she had slowly unwound memories.

She watched the silent, choreographed duties of servants around a white bed, white curtains hiding a white-clad figure.  A grand procession of glittering personages, the shimmer of their iridescent clothing, palanquins, and strange steeds extending for several leagues in all directions.  But most importantly, the _libraries_.

Aoife stepped out of the darkness into one such library.  It was small, the furniture and parquet made of light wood carved so finely it was more like filigree, like lace.  There were piles of velvety cushions instead of chairs.  The shelves were full of the most remarkable poetry.  Just poetry.  She wondered if this place was an actual memory, or a place created out of the myriad fragments of poetry remembered by the Well in response to the deep longings of her subconscious.

The books here were all in ancient Elvhen.  Her understanding of the language was now impeccable, with a charming and modern accent, if she said so herself.  This was one of the most delightful things about having the Well’s memories; learning a language wasn’t tedious like in reality.  The language was already _apart_ of her, as the memories were apart of her.  So it came quickly, easily.

Aoife idly picked up a silken book.  She glanced at its now familiar lines, and then looked up.

She had spent so many nights here already.  The poetry of the ancients was lovely in its way; full of artifice and style as substance, the emotion meant to be conveyed armored under layers of double-, triple-meanings, convoluted metaphors.  Such shy things these ancestors had been.

Aoife put down the book.

She walked out of this library, and opened another.

Her plans for the night -- her first away from Skyhold -- had changed, it seemed.

This second library was larger, grander.  She suspected this one _was_ an actual memory, as occasionally people, inevitably tall and fair of face, would glide between the aisles.  The reading area in its center was opulent enough to put any of Celene’s palaces to shame.

Aoife silently padded down the paths between the shelves to a section containing magical treatises.

Time was running out.  She needed a plan.


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

> _One has me in prison who neither opens nor locks, neither keeps me for his own nor unties the bonds…_
> 
> _\--   From a modern prose translation of Petrarch’s Rima 134_

It happened once on the way down the Frostbacks.  Then it happened again on the roads to Jader, and a third time on the ship to Kirkwall.

Aoife glanced at Michel standing by her at the rail of the cargo and passenger ship, _The Tootsea_. (She couldn’t wait to tell Varric about the name of their fair vessel.)  Michel was glowering at a perfectly lovely day at sea; all crashing salt-spray, jaunty sailor calls from the rigging, and the warm whip of sea wind.

She cleared her throat.

“Well, if it’s going to be such a problem, maybe we just go with it?”

Michel looked at her. “What?”

“We’ll save money, you know.  With single cabins and rooms and whatnot.”

He cleared his face the way he did when he was particularly annoyed about something.

“I do not think so.”

Innkeepers would watch them enter their yards, both dressed in simple riding habits, carrying nondescript travelling gear, un-fancy steeds, watched as Michel helped Aoife dismount.  And the innkeepers would make assumptions.

“I was just kidding, Michel.”

“I’m aware.”

Aoife sucked her cheeks in, eyes narrowing.

“After all, wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re a dirty knife-ear lover.”

Michel turned toward her fully.  Dammit, but he was annoying.  The way he could compose himself so deliberately, in every motion, every flex of muscle and sweep of limb.  The way his face never betrayed a single thought or feeling.

In contrast, Aoife felt as though she were constantly stumbling along with the rush of her emotions, caught in the grips her memory, her past always washing the present in its colors, its pains and trials.  She felt habitually clumsy and stupid, a damned mess.

“Have I been anything other than respectful toward you?”

“Recently?”

He inclined his head. “Fair enough.  I was wrong, back then.  Try to understand, I come from a place where every favor is attached to a knife’s edge.  I am not used to people being sincere, without irony.”

“Even now?  It’s been several years.”

He shrugged, silent.

Aoife studied him.

“Do you hate elves?”

“No.”

She cocked her head.  It was so difficult to tell.  His mask-like face belied nothing.  But she wanted to take him at his word.  It was probably something he was also ‘not used to’: people taking him at his word.

“Do you want to talk about your mother?”

“No, I don’t,” he said, settling back against the rail.

She smiled. “Alright, maybe later.”

“Probably not.”

“That’s why I said _maybe_.”

Michel stared out at sea, no longer glowering, at least.  Some of the strangest things had been written about the sea.  Obsessive things, full of primordial imagery, womb metaphors, sea monsters driving madness into the world.  No wonder, when it was so incomprehensibly _massive_.  The sea was foreground and middleground and background and horizon and sky and stars and everything ever back to first moment in time.  No wonder it drove artists a little mad.

Michel tapped his thumb on _The Tootsea_ ’s rail.

“Go ahead and ask,” Aoife said.

He looked at her.

“You want to ask me something.  Go ahead.”

“Can I trust you?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The Commander, Lady Montilyet, Sister Nightingale.  You said yourself that they can’t trust your judgment anymore.  So, how far are you willing to go?”

She looked down.  The question, the moment, became swollen and heavy.

“I want to change his mind.  I really do.”

Michel was perceptive.  She wondered what he saw in her at that moment, at what she herself could not see.

“Do you want to talk about him?”

Aoife leaned against the rail, held her hand over the jumping spray.

“No, I don’t.”

-

She wore her hair down now.

How many times had they crawled out of their bedrolls, dreading all the little labors of breaking camp, and they had sat around the remains of a campfire, talking over the tasks for the day.  And the Inquisitor had her quick fingers up in her hair, braiding it into that familiar crown.

He remembered it well, because it was the kind of detail he liked to save for page fodder.  The way she parted the sections.  The way she never missed a comment or a laugh while her hands worked.  As if her hands were independent little hair-dressers while her mind worked on the plethora of latrine digging-tier duties the Inquisition dropped on her.

But now she wore her hair down, awkwardly pinned to one side, the side she still had a hand on.

In his office in the Viscount’s Keep, Aoife stood at his window, looking out at the gray, crippled -- Varric internally flinched.  Maker’s Breath, he’d have to watch himself.  Anyway, she was looking out at the sort of gray morning natives of Kirkwall liked to call “good enough.”

“You sure this is what you want?” Varric asked seriously.

“I think they’re looking for a new romance serial,” he continued.  “You could even make it literary quality!”

Aoife smiled. “I’ve already written it.”

Varric chuckled. “We all have our youthful follies.  I’m just being a good friend, trying to keep all the world from knowing _yours_.”

Her eyes, elfy-ly large, narrowed.

“I’m not sure if that’s a comment on poetry in general, or mine in particular.”

Varric threw up his hands in surrender.

“Now, now.  No offense meant.  You know I have no head for poetry.  I’m too impatient, I want to get to the sword fights and the punchlines.”

She shook her head.

“But you read the manuscript.”

“Yesss…” Here it comes.  The Question.

“What did you think?”

Varric really, really wished his editor would hurry up.  She had squealed, _actually_ squealed when she heard the former Inquisitor, of the Inquisition itself, wanted to publish a book.  Still, she chose _this_ meeting to be late.

Varric said, “I can’t really tell you one way or another on the technicals.  Like I said, poetics are over my head.  But.” He paused. uncertain in his phrasing. “But, it did make my dwarfy little heart feel things.”  The joke was his comfort zone.

She laughed and relaxed.  He hadn’t noticed until now how tense she’d been.  But it was there in her face, like always.  Relief.  Relief that at least one of her friends wasn’t going to pity her, remind her that she was someone to be pitied, and reopen all the tired, bloodless wounds.

Just then, Varric’s editor strode in.  She smiled warmly at Aoife, took her hand, and exchanged greetings like a loving older sister.

Varric hadn’t been exaggerating his editor’s excitement; he could already see all the dreams of gold dancing in her eyes.

She and Aoife began talking over the specifics of the manuscript.  His editor, smiling charmingly, broached the subject of translating the poems written in Elvish to Common.  Nothing had ever been printed in Elvish before, and even among the Dalish, a competent grasp of the language was becoming all the more rare.

Aoife drew herself up. “I know it would be unusual.”

“We don’t even have the blocks for the presses,” Varric’s editor said gently. “We’d have to have them cast.”

“But the University of Orlais _does_ have the blocks,” Aoife said. “And, apparently, they’re having a class studying Elvhen this semester.  And they’ve written to me to show interest in the manuscript.”  Her words were calm, but Varric and the other woman could clearly see the flush rising in her face.

His editor’s charming manner grew a little icy.  Varric distinctly remembered telling Aoife about her being in the Coterie.  His palms were getting damp.

“Yes, well, the University might have the blocks, but it takes a committee to decide whether this or that superlative honors Andraste more, and then another committee to make sure it doesn’t blow a hole in some courtier’s knickers.  Even scholars play the Game.”

The Game, where anything elfy is as offensive as shitting in someone’s parlor, Varric noted.  Um.  Internally.

Aoife cleared her throat. “And that’s why I’m in Kirkwall, not Val Royeaux.  I’m not unreasonable.  I’m willing to help fund the new blocks out of my own pocket.”

This cheered the editor considerably.  “I suppose we could spin it as a mark of authenticity.  Progressive.”

She leaned back in her chair, humming.

“Poetry.  By the former Inquisitor.  The elven former Inquisitor.  When Celene’s little project of promoting the elven plight is getting into full swing.   _Love_ poetry.” The woman sighed.

“We are going to make a _killing_ in Orlais.”

They talked a little longer, sussing out details, until the editor left with the promise (threat) to send by a contract soon.

Aoife stood at the window again.

“She’s certainly something.”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone else to badger all of Thedas into liking my work,” Varric said.

“Hmm.”

She didn’t say anything else and he began to feel awkward.  There was an unspoken question in the room -- or well, at least Varric felt so.  It would be clear to everyone, everyone who had been in the Inquisition, who her book was about.  And it would be clear to Solas, wherever he was.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Varric said. “Since now you’re publishing this, and I’m writing a new book about the Inquisition--”

“I knew it!” she smiled.  She was smiling, but he could see in her eyes she knew where his question was leading.

“Guilty as charged,” Varric said. “But, I want to know… Well.  If you want me to say anything about Solas.  Or anything about what happened at the Exalted Council.”

Aoife was looking away from him again, out the window.  The pause continued.

“So much changed after we killed Corypheus,” she said. “You really think anyone wants to hear about that anymore?”

“Are you kidding?” Varric said. “You’re one of the great heroes of this age.  People should hear the truth.  Or at least, _some_ of it.”

“One of the great heroes.”

She sighed. “Varric, there won’t be any more tales about me.  I’m no hero.  I haven’t been in a long time.  I’m not a character worth writing about.”

Varric shifted his weight.

She continued. “My motivations are weak and vague.  My personality has been flattened to a few flaws.  Worst of all, I have no agency.  I float along my plot like a bit of fluff.  So say what you like about me in your book, but I doubt I’ll much resemble that person when this is all over.”

She leaned toward the gray sleet that was the eternal essence of Kirkwall.

“No, I’m not a character worth writing about.  There won’t be any happy endings here.”

Varric thought about Hawke.  He thought about Bertram.  Bethany, Fenris, Isabela, Merrill.  Anders.  And now Aoife.  He hadn’t been lying about her poems pulling feelings from his heart.  They were beautiful.  Even an untrained reader could tell.  They were beautiful in their painful longing, their sweetness, their raging despair.  And these were just the ones he could read.

He could only imagine what the ones written in her native tongue, _their_ native tongue, said.  What these messages written in the long, lonely eons of history would say across the empty miles, the empty hours to the one they were meant for.

He wished he had the courage to say that to her.  


	4. Chapter 4

> My galley, chargèd with forgetfulness,
> 
> Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass
> 
> ‘Tween rock and rock…     –    Sir Thomas Wyatt

Michel woke in the middle of the night.

“I want to --”

He stopped, left the words incomplete. _Go home._

He didn’t say it, because it was ridiculous.  Michel sat up.  A creak grumbled in his chest as he pressed his hands to his face.  There was something.  Something that he was missing, that he had lost.  At the edge of his mind, it was walking away slowly, leaving him behind even though it was his.  It belonged to him, but what… what was it?  There was something.

_I want to go home_.

He woke in the midst of that sentence.  But it was ridiculous, why would he say it?

Michel threw his legs over the side of the bed, searched for a match on the nightstand and lit a candle.  In the darkness, the room, its fine-crafted furniture, its aged stucco, its portraits of someone else’s ancestors; the darkness washed the room blue, and the candle did little to reveal more.

He left the bedroom quietly.  It was an old home, ingrained in the fabric of other upper city homes, dressed in expensive stone and a cosmopolitan mix of Orlesian ceramics, Fereldan tapestries, and Antivan leather.  Handcrafted honesty of Free Marcher woodwork.  And everywhere, the red blazon of two intertwined birds of prey.

There was something that belonged to him, but it was gone.   _I want to go home_ .  What had he been dreaming of?  It was right there, but what.   _Home_.  What home?  

At this moment, Michel had no home beyond the things he could carry on horseback.  Before, it had been the little personal alcove he’d had in the Inquisition barracks.  Before that, a series of inn rooms and peasant hovels as he wandered, searching for Imshael.  Before that, whatever was allotted to him in the shadow of Celene’s opulence.  His ascetic dorm in the Academie.  Comte Brevin’s sunny, apple-scented country estate.  The filth of Montfort’s alienage.

Michel was not sentimental.  None of these places meant anything significant to him.  They were stopping points in his life, the backdrops to his actions.  But it bothered him.  Why had he woke, saying that?   _I want to go home_.

And it was a familiar feeling.  Not homesickness; he had no true home.  You could not be sick for something that did not exist.  Yes?  Wasn’t that how it worked?

Michel took the stairs silently, probing the darkness of the floor below with his candle.  The Hawke estate was clean and free of dust.  When they’d first come here, he had expected the paintings and the furniture to be covered, all the trimmings of a well-to-do house packed away.  But it was as if the occupants had gone to the market for a moment.  Not as if its mistress had been absent for several years, and would not return anytime soon.

Aoife had raised a brow, and asked Varric Tethrys about the tidiness.

“Could be there are _occasional_ tourists with more money than sense who want to oogle the Champion’s water closet.  Who am I to crush a man’s dream?”

“Remind me never to lend you a key to my place.”

“As long as you promise to keep this between us.  Hawke doesn’t need to know.”

Aoife had frowned. “You sure she won’t mind us camping out here?”

Varric had waved his hand dismissively. “‘Course not.  You’re part of her club.  Famous people getting stuff done club.  You think I’m going to let you get robbed by a Kirkwall inn?”

And so Michel and Aoife had spent the past three weeks here in Kirkwall.  Aoife would go to the publisher’s in the mornings, working on the book, and Michel would explore the city.  Watched the locals of Hightown barter in the markets, looked up at the workers dangling around the incomplete reconstruction of the Kirkwall Chantry.  He walked through Lowtown’s spiced air, tainted with the stink of rotten fish.  Watched the dance of coin as ships came in and left the docks.  Kept his hand on his blade in Darktown, its squalor and sin almost reassuring in its commonality with every city in Thedas.

In the evenings, sometimes Michel would meet Aoife for dinner.  She would chatter about this line or that stanza, and he would listen or comment about something he’d read during his time at court.  She would chew on these tidbits, even supplant his knowledge when he grappled with the exact reference.  She was clearly the more well-read, but seemed to value his insight.  At her offer to teach him Elvish, though, he had declined.  Her eyes read as teasing, half-amused at Michel’s taciturn nature, half-satisfied by her prickling of him.

Sometimes they would be joined by Varric.  The Viscount had taken a disconcerting liking to Michel, calling him “Chivalry.”  Aoife seemed cheered by the dwarf’s presence, even with all the citizens of Kirkwall stopping to greet him, cajole, or boldly bribe him.  The three of them would dine in a Hightown cafe, or drink in the Hanged Man, the Viscount’s personal guard leaning against walls, sitting in corners.

Michel entered Hawke’s library.

He lit a few more candles, tried to ignore the hideous statue sitting above the mantle.  Michel studied the bookcases, thinking.  Or trying not to think.  He couldn’t be sure which he wanted more right now.

The ghosts of this place’s inhabitants were everywhere.  Copies of that apostate’s manifesto kept popping up, old dog toys were hidden in curious places, crude drawings carved into the staircase.  Shadows of laughter and companionship lingered here.

What was this feeling?   _I want to go home_.  It was strange, a stranger in his mind, uncanny.  Yet he knew it.  It felt like something deeply rooted, furled and reaching so far and away.

It felt like longing.  Like sentiment, and that was intolerable to him.  What could he possibly long for?

He thought of the deepness of wine-dizziness, the drag of a sword’s weight and how easily, how slowly necks can break.  How they can be used like handles, those long, thin ears.

Michel slapped his palm on a desk.  Enough.  He was merely restless.  The former Inquisitor had her little project to fuss over, while he was adrift, purposeless.  His future prospects: undetermined, other than the whims of a moping elven girl.

He slapped the desk again.  Dammit all.

“ _Do you hate elves_?”

He turned around, paced.  He gave no heed to the amount of sound he was making.  He’d long noticed the honeyed sleeping draught Aoife took every night.  She wasn’t hiding it, exactly, but she didn’t remark on it.  She slept deep, so he could stomp about as much as he liked.

What he really needed was to go out and train.  Enough of this sight-seeing shit.  He was tired of thinking; he needed to move.  And the Commander, Nightingale, Lady Montilyet, _anyone_ , needed to send them orders.

Michel paced.

-

He was relieved then, when a few days later they received a missive asking them to investigate a possible agent of Fen’harel -- a merchant in Wycome.

Aoife’s nose rumpled and her lips pulled back in a grimace.  She glared at the letter in her hands.

“ _Antivans_!”

She threw it down; it fluttered ineffectually to the the floor.

Michel picked it up, looking over Lady Montilyet’s impeccable hand.

He gave her a deadpan look. “You knew you’d have to start working against him at some point.”

“What?” She shook her head.  “Oh, it’s not that.  That part’s... fine.  They’re just so- so-”

She groaned, put her head in in her hand..

“They _know_ that if I go to Wycome, I’ll have to go back to my clan.”

She frowned. “Not go back.  Visit.  Reunite?   _Ugh_.” 

“You don’t _have_ to-”

“Oh no!  Yes, _I do_.  Hahren already sent one letter when she heard I was in Kirkwall.  They get wind that I’m even taking _a step_ towards Wycome?  Forget it.  The scouts’ll be on me like ticks on a mabari.”

“Hm.” Michel crumpled the letter, threw it in the fireplace.  Just in case.

“What busybodies.”

He wasn’t sure if she meant her clan members or the advisors.

Aoife tapped a foot.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll just--  We’ll just get it over with.  Yeah.  Just get it done.”

She looked at him.

“Um.  Assuming you’re coming, of course.”

“I’m supposed to be your bodyguard, no?”

“Or something.”

She cocked her head, considering him.

Michel cocked a brow at her. “I hear Wycome has better Antivan wine than Antiva City.”

“And shellfish!  I can’t tell you how sick I got of Vivienne bragging about that.”

“Wycome it is.”

-

In truth, she’d been a difficult First.

“Questions, always the questions,” Hahren would say.

At first, when she was still small, it was merely curiosity.  Everything was strange and wondrous, and why, _why_ , Hahren?  But when she tumbled into adolescence her tone became short, superior and sharp.  Probing, probing, she was full of resentment at being “mere Dalish” -- how stupid their ancestors were, allowing themselves to be defeated, squandering their great civilization.  How terrible to be a backwater savage.

She resented being told her own path.  She isolated herself, spent days away from the camp fires, roaming the lands for ruins, carrying sheaves of parchment for inscription rubbings.  Or lurking in shem city shadows, trying to be inconspicuous in book shops until someone spotted her vallaslin.

“Da’len, it would be one thing if you were just hunter or hearth keeper, but you are First.  You are not merely yours, much as you hate it.  They will look to you when I am beyond seeing, when their voices can’t reach me.  You are ours, and we are yours.”

And so she grew out of her rebellious phase.  The clan came to accept her reading, her curiosity as her quirks.  Her fascination with ruins somehow an affirmation of her position.  And she loved her clan.

She loved hearth mother Laewa, who overcooked the meat to a dry, chewy torture; but no one had the heart to tell her, so they just silently dreaded the days she was preparing meals.

She loved sleeping in a crowded aravel, sandwiched between warmth and hot breath that stank of rabbit, feathery snores, the steady beat of breathing.  A multi-limbed tangle that was safe and complete.

She loved dangling her legs over the side of a moving aravel, the long groan of the wood, the rattley squeak of the wheels, and the snap of the sails -- all a breathy, drowsy song under the summer sun.  A sound like a full stomach, a body that was heavy and content.

And she loved Hahren, who had loved her when Aoife had screamed in her face and had listened with more patience than she deserved.  Hahren, who had said nothing when she’d gotten drunk the first time, off hard liquor the hunters had nicked, and instead had held her hair, rubbed her back until she fell asleep.  Hahren, who would brush and braid her hair, all the while singing under her breath.  Hahren, whose hands had been chapped, loose-skinned, blue-veined when she’d last seen them.

She loved her clan, so even if it wasn’t enough, even if her mind and heart wandered where her feet could not, it was fine.  It was fine.

Aoife pushed her hair aside, to lay her cool hand against her sweating neck.

The repurposed Duke’s manor was paler than Kirkwall’s Viscount Keep.  Countless windows fell open to autumnal ocean breezes, scent of salt and marshes, light that was neither warm enough for summer, nor cool enough for winter rose up into thin-ribbed vaults.  It was some weeks from winter, true, but still the breeze was a little sharp, the light leaning a little cool.

Aoife and Michel had debated over taking the land bound path along the coast, through the Vinmark foothills, but had decided instead on the faster searoute.  They would need to arrive at and leave Wycome quickly to return to Kirkwall before winter really hit.  Varric, promised a fine bottle of get-me-drunk-while-making-me-look-fancy, had had a contact that took them on at short notice.  Four days at sea, and now they were waiting outside the Wycome Council Chambers.  Michel leaned against a ballister, all sloped shoulders and casual arms, while Aoife stood straight and smoothed her tunic out.

The doors opened, a servant propping them open, and the council members began wandering out.  A woman, small and long-eared, stopped.

“Da’len.”

They embraced.  Aoife’s throat tightened because she smelled just like she remembered and because her hair was so, so white and Hahren’s head was tucked underneath her chin.  Had she always been this small?  Michel watched politely, so they parted.

“Aneth ara, Hahren.  This is Michel, my companion, also formerly of the Inquisition.  Michel, Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel of Clan Lavellan.”

Michel bowed his head, which Hahren returned.

“Keeper, an honor.”

“A pleasure, Michel.”

The woman inspected Michel, quiet eyes meeting a silent face.  Then she turned again to Aoife.  To Aoife, her adopted daughter, whom she had not seen in nearly three years.  And stood before her now, bare-faced, one-armed, and wearing shoes.  Aoife, tight-throated and damp, instantly flushed and let her eyes slide away.

Hahren took her arm.  “Come.  I am tired and wish to go home.”

And so they passed by the lingering little groups of council members with their curious looks, and stepped out into Wycome.  Without missing a beat, as if there had never been a day’s absence between them, hundreds of miles parting them, Hahren told her about the running of Wycome.  How she and Udair, the city elf leader, had their coalition, and how they were sometimes the tie-breaker in votes.  They had power, much as it galled some of the others on the council.

They walked arm-in-arm, Michel trailing some distance in consideration.  The canals glittered green and trailed sinuously, herding their path around tight, winding avenues.  Hahren also told her about the clan living in the city now.  They’d taken up in the alienage at first, then spilled out into nearby districts.  At first, it had been a necessity; to protect themselves after the incident with Duke Antoine.  But then they began building a life.

Not everyone had approved of the change.  A good portion of the clan had split off, spitting “Flat-ear” at Deshanna as they went.  Some had not been so bitter, merely chafing under the limits of the city.  Their numbers were reduced, but the city elves had become close to those remaining Dalish.  They celebrated holidays togethers, shared in each other’s pains and joys.  There had already been several marriages.

“‘Marriages’?” Aoife asked.

She shrugged. “Bondings.  Marriages.  What does it matter what it is called?  It is love and family.”

They continued on into a district crowded with old buildings and smaller people, who saw Deshanna and bent their heads respectfully.  A great tree filled a central square, and there they were -- the hunters who had teased her, the halla keepers who had watched, sharp with worry, as she had healed cloven ankles.  The hearth mothers who had fussed over her, the crafters who had put up with her constant demands for paper.

They all looked up at her, and Aoife was again so hot-faced, jittery.  She kept her head up this time, though.  The tension quickly broke as Clan Lavellan pulled her back into the fold, embracing her, slapping her on the back, eyeing her face.

Curious, city elves trickled out into the square, a spit and fire was assembled, and a cask was rolled out.  It had turned into a celebration somehow.  Aoife was given drinks while her ears were talked off, memories dug up, old jokes renewed.  Michel stood above them all, looking more serene than any human had a right to in such a situation.  At some point a group of hunters eyed the blade hanging from his belt.

“Can you swing that pig-sticker, shem?” one laughed.

Aoife watched Michel’s face attentively.  But he merely grinned.

“You’re welcome to test it, rabbit.”

And then, like an ancient, sacred ritual of parties, the braggadocios broke off to drunkenly catcall and slash at each other.  For a little while, Aoife observed as Michel accepted a practice sword from someone and squared off with the hunters.  All in jest.

She turned away.  Across the twirl of flames, through the lit darkness, Hahren locked eyes with her.  The woman gestured for her to come near.  Aoife crossed the square and sat at her feet.

“You are tired, Da’len.  I can see it in your eyes.”

“I am.  I am so tired.”

Hahren watched her clan and the city elves, her family, as they danced and laughed.

“And you are embarrassed.  Of your face and your arm.”

“I am, Hahren,” she said quietly.

“But look, see all the faces without vallaslin here?  What does it matter, when we are together.  When we beat as one heart.”

Aoife said nothing.

The woman looked at her.  “They are curious, of course.  But we love you too much to let it come between us.”

“I know, Hahren.  But I have walked a lonely path.  And I walk it still.”

This woman, her mother, pushed closer and threaded her fingers into Aoife’s hair.  She combed the curls, mindful of salt-sprayed tangles.  An old, familiar rhythm to her gentle tugs, the tender touches as she began to braid.

“Irassal ma ghilas, ma garas mir renan -- ara ma'athlan vhenas.  Ar lath ma.”*

Had Hahren’s hands always shook like this?  Aoife sat, and though it hurt, she held back her tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Wherever you shall go, follow my voice -- I will call you home. I love you.
> 
>  
> 
> I am predicting twelve chapters now. Might change, but that's what I'm saying now.  
> Also, made a correction in the previous chapter regarding printing because I am an idiot that doesn't research properly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Giving a warning that there are descriptions of graphic violence in this chapter. Please read safely.

 

> That you have but slumbered here  
>  While these visions did appear.  
>  And this weak and idle theme,  
>  No more yielding but a dream...    
> 
> \-    Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

They wintered in Kirkwall.

It was not the bitter white wash of Fereldan, or even Orlais, but the city’s seat on the sea caught it up in a perpetual icy chill, a damp freeze that would be washed away by steely rain.  Which in turn would freeze overnight on the cobbles, the eaves.  A cyclical season of ice within the larger winter months.

Michel chafed at it.  Frankly, he was bothered by his spiritual perturbation.  He had never known himself to be anything other than patient and stoic.  Eagerness, reluctance, excitement -- these were the descriptions of the unskilled.  They were the cracks in your facade to be exploited.

The supposed agent of Fen’harel in Wycome did not pan out.  The merchant’s office was empty, his employees suddenly dismissed or scattered.  The man had no family, and had abandoned his rented townhouse.  Michel and Aoife had sent off their report of the man’s seeming complete disappearance.  They were thanked, and told to await further instructions.  And they were at liberty to do as they pleased.  

Michel wondered if this Wycome agent had really needed investigation.  Were they told to show themselves for some unspecified reason?  A display of force?  Or the more momentous show of information?  The location of the former Inquisitor would be valuable information indeed.  But who needed to see them?  They were now mere cogs of a machine whose purpose they could not discern.

The Lavellan clan could not have been more different from the last Dalish clan he’d encountered.  Or rather, Michel’s encounter with them could not have been more different.  Not that they _weren’t_ different-- ...or something.

The clan, especially the hunters, seemed to find Michel’s personality amusing.   _Da’durgen_ they called him.  Aoife had laughed when he’d asked her what it meant.

“It’s ‘little stone,’” she said.

Michel sighed.  She snickered.

“What?” he asked.

“Well, _durgen’len_ is dwarf.  And you’re, y’know-” She raised her hands above her head in a pantomime.

At every meal, every evening gathering around the vhenadahl, Michel towered above the elves.  It was--

It was like being a child again.  Overtaking his agemates in height and weight at an alarming rate.  His ears never growing long and thin, set apart from his skull.  Realizing even his face was not the same; being called ‘squinty’ or feeling the craggy undulations of the bridge of his nose.

But these Dalish warriors called him _Da’durgen_ and crossed blades with him.  He had the feeling they welcomed the distraction he presented.  They were a little cooped up in this soft city life.  He was tall, could fall against a parry with pressing weight, had a punishing reach.  He was different.

The city elves were not so friendly.  They saw the blade at his belt, the clothes that were certainly not indicative of poverty, and they grew quiet.  Nothing was said aloud; out of respect for the Keeper’s First, but they side-eyed him, kept their distance.

The city elves were curious about the prodigal First.  Dalish yet unmarked, famed across Thedas, a living myth breaking bread with them.  But then Aoife would fall into a giggling fit with an old friend, who knew the city elf beside them, who was now an in-law to the one across the fire, and the conversations would grow across the darkening hours.  Michel watched her as well; how she folded back into her family with a smile or an embrace.  And then - perhaps the others did not see it - but he watched as she seemed to catch herself at it.  And he wondered at her expression: wounded, wandering.

In any case, they left Wycome as cold crept further and further into daylight hours.  Whatever parting words Aoife shared with the Keeper left her raw-eyed.  He turned away from it politely, and they had a quiet journey down the coast.

They wintered in Kirkwall, and the days seemed to drag for Michel.

He took up odd jobs for Varric, and for the captain of the Kirkwall Guard, Aveline.  Varric had nobles he’d rather not deal with; he sent Michel.  Aveline had problems the Guard couldn’t be seen handling; she sent Michel.  “You’ve taken up her house, you might as well take up her jobs,” she groused.

Aoife spent the season working on her book, writing letters, reading.  She worked a good few weeks by the hearth, struggling with a wooden block and carving tools.  She would get tangled up in herself, cursing, as she held the block down with her stump, her feet, or anything, and slowly etched away at it.

Visiting, Varric hid a grin with a hand and asked, “I thought they had all the elvish-”

“Elvhen,” she snapped.

“-Elven letters cast already?”

“ _Vhen_. They do, but by the Void do they mangle it when they’re laying the lines!  I have to hover over every single one, or I’ll be publishing dirty limericks instead of sonnets.”

“The world could use more dirty limericks.”

“I agree, but someone else can do it, please.”

She grit her teeth, considered the wooden block.

“This is something no one else can do,” she said.

She carved and carved, sitting in shadow.  And the winter dragged on.

They received bits of news from the north.  A prominent magister was assassinated during the court season, in the middle of a party thrown by the Archon.  It wasn’t the dead man himself that caused concern, apparently, but the way in which he was killed.  Finer political points that couldn’t be nailed down with only second-hand rumors. Skirmishes in Seheron were escalating.  The body count sounded, frankly, impossible.  A complicated weave of trade conflicts between Nevarra and Rivain influenced by shadow alliances with Tevinter and Qunandar.

Spring meandered in shyly, still a little frost-touched, and Michel breathed a sigh of relief.  As did Aoife. In her words, “I’m so done with your antsy bullshit.”  By the end of Guardian, they were snipping at each other, avoiding each other’s ire at meals.  Until, finally, a missive from one of Sister Nightingale's people gave them a list of ruins to investigate in the Marches.

“Oooh,” ooh’ed Aoife, inspecting the list. “I’ve always wanted to go to this temple.  I’ve been to so few for June-”

Michel took the list.

“ _Ruins_?” he asked. “What are we supposed to do in ruins?”

She snatched it back. “Investigate.  Study.  Exhibit some patience, maybe.”

He scowled. “You’re quite flippant about this.”

“What?”

“All the blood being shed in Seheron, all the machinations in Minrathous, and you’re content to just- kick around in the dust?”

“Hmm,” she hummed. “Look who got a personality all a sudden.”

He turned in disgust. “I’m packing.”

“You do that.”

So they packed up their things, erased their presence from the Hawke estate.  The book was far along enough that Aoife felt comfortable leaving it to the publisher, so they gave their farewells to Varric, Aveline, and Kirkwall.  Reclaimed their steeds from the horse merchant they’d stabled them with, and slowly picked their way across the floodlands outside of the city.  The world stank of new breezes and overturned earth, everything still a little chilled, a little bitter.  

Their first stop was in the Vimmark mountains.  They were taking the land route, following the river that curled around Kirkwall and fell from deep within the mountains.  The river would be swollen from ice-melt from the high snow caps, so they would have to be careful to not ride too near the rushing banks.

It took several days just to leave the foothills and climb into soft peaks.  It rained a light, fetid-scented mist.  Michel and Aoife spoke little.  The riding was helping his mood, but he still felt a deep blackness that baffled him.  Frightened him, if he would admit it.

The pair of them traveled on.

-

A dull slap.

The woman panted, turned the dough over.  A dull slap as the elastic, warm lump hit the table, releasing a mist of white flour.  The flour powdered the air, dry and smelling like life.  The woman wiped sweaty blond hair out of her face with the back of one hand.  She thrust the heel of her palm into the dough, kneading, coaxing the flour, water, and fat into cohesion.  Working air into it that would make it soft in the mouth.  Breathing life into it.

A boy sat in the corner.  He idly poked at a large tray of finished lumps of dough.  His finger dimpled the mounds.  They flexed and reformed slowly.  He watched his mother’s bent back, heaving with the effort of kneading, her muscles tightening.

A final, dull slap.  The woman straightened, leaning back into her hands and popping her back.  Her caked fingers left stains on her threadbare dress.  She picked up the dough and laid it on the tray beside the boy.

“Take this to the baker’s.  No dallying, understand?  And bring a baked tray to the tavern.”

She lifted the tray above his head as he stood.  He was young; hadn’t even lost all his milkteeth yet.  Even so, he stood up to the woman’s chest.

The boy’s stomach rumbled.  Her hands stopped.  Then she placed the tray in his hands, hovered until he had it balanced above his head. She stooped, kissed him on the cheek.

“Go on.  I’ll give you breakfast at the tavern.”

Her eyes, liquid and blue, reassured him.

The boy left the hovel stitched into the fabric of other hovels like it. The streets and their inhabitants pressed on him, people ducking and swerving to avoid his tray held high.  A few mild complaints followed him.  His bare feet splashed in the filthy gutterwater sitting around rough cobbles.  The boy cut across the central court where the vhenadahl loomed high.  Other children were filtering through the other alleys off the courtyard, swinging bright handkerchiefs powdered with flour and bulging with dough.  Some had trays like the boy, but none so large.

At the baker’s a crowd was gathered around the entrance.  The young wives of families without children, the children of those that did, the grannies that liked to yell at the baker.  They all grumbled as the boy shoved through the crowd, already bulkier and taller than most of them.  Tongues were stuck out at him, sighs were directed at him.

The baker’s son was shaped like the baker; sinew and sturdy muscle strapped to a lean frame.  Covered head to toe in flour, a crust of dried water and flour mixture encasing his hands.  He took the large tray from the boy, disappeared.  The boy stood in the bakery doorway. He leaned inward slightly, into the warmth of the unseen ovens, into the smell of baking bread.  The smell of contentment and sleepiness. The smell that was like sitting in sunlight.

The baker himself appeared with a tray of fresh bread.  It was a little mountain range of dark golden mounds.  The boy took it.

“Tell that arsehole Peyd I don’t want spit in my beer tonite.”

The boy didn’t have a chance to reply; an old woman, a bag of bones and sharp scoldings, pushed him aside.  He carefully extricated himself from the crowd, and headed to the tavern.  As he walked, the smell drifting down from above his head made his mouth water.

He met his mother at the back entrance to the tavern.  She grunted, taking the tray from him.  He followed her into the kitchen.  Peyd was yelling in the front room.  Probably at his wife and the serving girls.  He was always yelling.  His mother set down the tray.  She crept to the kitchen door, opened the top half a crack and peered through a moment.  Satisfied, she stepped away.  She gestured at the boy.  He was sat in a niche between sacks of beans and shelves of wooden, ceramic crockery.

The woman took one of the fresh loaves.  She tore it apart, pulling off a generous portion.  The bread released a warm steam where it was cleaved, smelling sweet and sour.  The yelling stuttered; the woman paused.  When it continued, she reached into a little sack on the table.  Out came a pinchful of magic.  A white, glittery sort of magic that you sprinkled over anything to make it lovely and sweet. A magic that cost more coin than the boy and his mother could ever spare.  The woman dusted the piece of bread.  She hid the rest of the torn loaf under a cloth.

His mother crossed the tiny kitchen and folded the boy’s grimy hands around the bread.  Her fingers cupped his, lingering.  She smoothed his greasy hair.

“Water and bread,” she said. “They’re the same.  We need both water and bread to live, Michel.”

Within the month, the woman would have a cough.

In three months, she would be bedridden.

In four, she’d be dead.

The boy ate, the sugar melting on his tongue.

-

The first sign that something was wrong was the smell of raw dough.

Aoife swore.

Around her, the silent and empty ruins wavered as if she were viewing them through a hot incandescence rolling over sand dunes.  A pressure filled the room- or rather, the _area_ as “walls” and “floors” began to warp and flex.  The pressure furled within her, compressed her and all her material components.

Aoife swore again, summoned her magic.  She cast out and searched for whatever had gone wrong.  All the while, the smell of raw dough grew. Engorged, it became a physical _thing_ that changed to a dark, dank yeastiness.  It clawed its way down her throat and settled on the back of her tongue.

Throat. Tongue.  It never failed.  No matter how often she dwelled here, her subconsciousness always attempted to make physical sense of the immaterial Fade.

She deepened her magic.  Let it wheel away and spiral out in an elegant array.  She forced a golden illumination into existence around her. She would exert her will and _see_ through this mess; she would find the tangle in her nets.

Aoife had to find him.

_Michel_ , her will called.

-

The young man wore armor now.  He could shimmer in full plate, or gleam dully in oiled leathers, but either way he no longer wore dirt and grease.  He sat beside his friends in a cart clattering over rough cobbles, and he swayed from the motion, from the exultant camaraderie of being with his peers, being part of an _us_. He swayed from the heat of a bellyful of wine, passing the skin to his neighbors.  

Something smelled like flour, water, and fat.  It mixed with the heat of alcohol, the growing stench of the gutters as they traveled farther into the slums, and the knowledge of what they were about to do.  It made the young man sweat.

But he sat with his peers, and his instructors were sitting up front. There was a fever amongst them.  It burned hot and excited.  They could smell it, what they were about to do.  They could taste it.

The young man knew, after tonight, he would be a chevalier.  He would be a weapon honed by a code of honor.  His worth would be proven by the blazon on his chest.

The wagon came to a halt.

The instructors gave the wineskins a final pass.  Your bodies have been tested, and found strong, they said.  Your minds have been tested, and found sharp.  Now, test your blades.  Thrice this year, the elves of these streets have done injury to a lord of Orlais, and once to a lady.  Go forth and mete out the justice of the chevaliers of Orlais.

They were hauled up, pushed out into the street.

The cart rumbled off.  The boys stood in the dark, empty street.  The quiet stalked around them, anticipatory and heavy.  Shabby structures of rough, rotted-out wood wobbled in the light wind around them. Bits of cloth more holes than thread hung in the stead of doors and windows.  The hovels seemed to breath, the rags exhaling and inhaling.  They could feel the unseen gazes on them from the deepest parts of darkness.  They were outsiders.  They were shit-stained boots on the dinner table, a misplaced stitch in knitting.

For a long moment, the young men stared at each other.  Or tried to. They were unfocused, blurred at their edges.  One of them suddenly grinned.  He spat, unsheathed his blade.  He swung playfully at the others.  They laughed.  Someone began singing the Academie’s alma mater, and the others joined in.  Then they were running, loud and blustering and dissonant, running through the winding slums, banging on the paper-thin walls around them, catcalling.  Knife ear, knife ear, I’ve a boot that needs shining, I’ve an ass that needs wiping.

Then they were falling into the hovels’ holes.  Then they were kicking over flimsy furniture.  Then they were pulling the elves from their hiding spots.

Then they were testing their blades.

And Michel knew he would be a chevalier in the morning.  

Some tried to fight back.  Rusted, dull swords little better than big kitchen knives.  Actual kitchen knives.  Iron pans.  Clubs.  Most pathetic of all, their own fists.  Some begged for mercy.  Some threw themselves out of their homes and into their path, to distract them for whatever was inside.  Some submitted without a word.

Michel had beat a couple until they were a whimpering mass in the dirt.  He had skewered an elf charging him with a mere dagger.  That one had been young, about his own age, and protecting a pair of children snivelling in the corner.  He and the children had stared at each other.  Then he’d left without a word.  He had clubbed three women that had tangled up one of the other chevalier students in line. They were hitting, clawing at him when Michel bashed them from behind.  Together, the two humans kicked and smacked them into bloody submission.

Michel had broken bones.  He had stabbed.  He had cut open guts and cracked open skulls.  He had whaled on a face until it could no longer be called a face.

That smell persisted.  The black yeast that stuck to you, coated and dripped from you.  The fermentation that flared until it bubbled over into rot.  Sour and saccharine, it snarled in the metallic blood and the crying and the wails.

He had been a boy once like this one, curled up in the shadows as the chevaliers stomped by.  Watching his neighbors be brutalized, helpless to do anything, praying they wouldn’t find his mother. Michel clutched his head, the only protection he had, and stared up at himself - a looming, thick creature decked in steel and flecked with gore, eyes empty.  The filthy guttersnipe stared up at the chevalier.

Michel turned away.  He turned away from his peers crushing throats under their boots.  He turned away from the pleading, the rattling last breaths.  He turned until he stood in front of an elven woman.

Her blond hair was caught up in a careless knot.  She was white with flour, her eyes rimmed in stark red, the blue glowing.  She was taller than him.

“What a price you’ve had to pay,” she said.  She smirked.

Michel said nothing.

“Just think, in a few years you’ll be Celene’s champion!  What’s a few elven skulls smashed to get from the gutters to the palace up on that hill.”

He said nothing.

“I can tell you’re at least not enjoying this.  What was the point, then?  You… _suffer_ this,” she laughed bitterly.  “And then waste it?  For a promise to Briala, a _knife ear_? What was the point?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

“You do know.  But you’re afraid.  You don’t want to face it.  Who are you?  Who is Michel?”

The elven woman closed on him, face warping.  The raw smell of yeast _we need both water and bread to live_ became fetid, overwhelming.

“ _Who are you_? _Who is Michel_?” she hissed.

Michel gripped his blade.

“ _Enough_ ,” he said.

“What are you gonna do, stab me?”

Michel fucking stabbed her.

-

Or he would have if not for the impact of his blade careening along the surface of a shield threw him back.  Michel recovered automatically, furiously shoving his shoulder against the barrier, little golden lightnings arcing along his leathers.

“ _By the Void!_ Would you _knock it off!?_ ” Aoife shouted.  She threw her barrier out, causing him to stumble backwards.

Well, maybe it was her barrier, maybe it was the way the tall elven woman was melting away to become the small, one-armed mage.  The way the slums around them flickered, and with a wave of golden light, disappeared completely.  A nondescript, marbled room took its place.

Michel’s eyes narrowed.

“How do I know you aren’t a demon, just taking on another guise?” he asked, keeping his sword at the ready.

“We don’t have time to argue,” Aoife snapped. “It took me long enough to get your attention, and I can only keep it for so long.

Michel paused.

“I’m listening,” he said.

He did not sheath his sword, though.  She rolled her eyes.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“The slums of Val Royeaux-- No.  Montfort.  I was-” he frowned. “I was with my mother again…”

“Before that.”

He was silent.  Aoife felt the subtle increase of pressure on her construct around them, a signal that Michel’s perturbation was increasing.

“Come on-”

“We’re a few days ride from the Navarran border.  We finally found that temple supposedly for an Old God.  We made camp and went to sleep.”

“Yes, except that temple is apparently housing a very nasty demon.  One that found you interesting.  It’s here,” she gestured out vaguely. “Somewhere.”

“And,” he said. “Where is here?”

“Your mind.  Or rather, your dreams.  Which is your mind projected on the Fade.”

“The Fade.  So this isn’t real.”

“ _No_ ,” Aoife said firmly. “This is real.  I mean, this has real consequences.  This demon has us trapped here in the Fade, and unless you find it and push it out, we’ll stay trapped.”

“Wait, _we_?” Michel asked. “What do you mean?  Why are you here, anyway?”

_Fenedhis_. Aoife knew she’d made a mistake as she watched Michel’s eyes scrutinize her, as he recognized the slip in her expression. Deception.

“You-”

“Look, later.  For now, just listen.  You’re not going to remember this, but try to remember-”

“ _That doesn’t make any sense_ -”

“ _Just listen to me and try to hold on to this_ ,” she said, raising her voice over his. “This is all controlled by you.  The Fade responds to your will.  You have to find the key to regaining control.  I’ll help as much as I can, but ultimately, it’s up to you.”

The world shifted.

Michel stumbled.

_Wait how do I-_

-

“You’ve done well.”

Celene and he sat astride their warhorses, decked in the finest of plate. Hers was the gleaming, gilded richness suited to an empress.  His was all in the blazon on his chest; the threat of his training, the authority he held as peer of the realm.  They sat astride their warhorses, quietly waiting for the army column to form.  As they waited, they watched the slums of Halamshiral burn.

Celene had an eye on him, with her face turned and her mask casting her in darkness.  A bright white splinter in the shadows on her face, turned on him, inspecting him, scenting for blood.

“Empress,” Michel said.

“It must be hard,” she said, inclining her head a negligible degree toward the rising plumes of fat black smoke.

He said nothing.  Fear shot through him.  Impossible.

“It hasn’t been easy, has it, Ser Michel?  Not here, or in Val Royeaux. You’ve never lived easy.”

She knew.  How could she know?  A whiteness drifted toward him from her. A fetid smell.  What-

“But it is plain to anyone with eyes that you are a man.  The Maker’s blessed.”

What was this new game of hers?  His head pounded.  There were people nearby.  Near enough to listen in if they knew the trick.  What the devil was she doing?  But he could not extricate himself from this. He would never be able to.

Celene swept a hand out towards the flames, close enough now to buffet them with heat.

“This was my order.  It was my hands that crushed this rebellion, that fanned this fire.  It was Gaspard, too, who pushed me into this corner.”

She paused, looked at him.

“It was never you, Michel.  Even back then.  The blood of the Orlesian elves is on the Academie.  The Academie is mine, so the responsibility is mine.  You are a true chevalier, Michel de Chevin. With more honor than can be said of any other.  Duty is who you are, and you have followed yours without fail.  So take heart.  This guilt you feel is not yours.  It is mine.  It always has been.”

Celene and he sat astride their warhorses, watching as the slums of Halamshiral burned.

The troublesome thing about _Duelist_ _Catches the Apple_ is that it is better performed on foot, facing your opponent. Otherwise you risk harming your horse.  And you lose speed when situated at an awkward angle to your mark.  But even so, its quickness is unmatched, and with correct muscle control, it is never detected until your blade is deep in the mark’s gullet, black blood bubbling and hissing, emitting a rotted steam.

The demon-Celene screamed.

Cheritenne, poor thing, had his ear clipped.  He was long dead, but even this Fade recreation merely whuffed at the abuse; he had been the best of steeds, and Michel was glad to remember him so.  The warhorse responded to his touch like old times and wheeled away from the monstrosity that gurgled and boiled where Celene had sat before.

“You are making a mistake,” it roared.  Its voice was deep and full. Quaking like earth.

Michel gave Cheritenne the order to charge.  The horse thundered on the amorphous, foul-smelling thing.  Steel shod hooves sheared the demon, and a blade cleanly lopped a head-like blob from the mass.  It roiled angrily.

“I could give you what you desire,” the demon groaned. “Peace and fulfillment.  Things you will never achieve on your own.”

It lurched suddenly, with surprising speed.  Michel bore against its crushing weight with  Cheritenne  flicking away in a surge of muscle and steel.  They accelerated as they circled.  Light was flooding this false court in a false Halamshiral.  It bathed the silent, faceless figures of ladies and lords, chevaliers and soldiers. Mask-shod all.

Michel fell onto the demon, sundering its flesh savagely.

“I am Michel,” he snarled. “An elf-blooded bastard.  Chevalier. Disgraced champion of the Empress of Orlais.  Inquisition agent.”

He and the demon roared as he cleaved its length with his blade.

“ _I am a thinking, reasoning being.  And my actions are my own.  You will take nothing from me.  Not even my sins.  And I will not be bested by the likes of you_.”

The air thundered and thrummed with an unseen pressure.  Everything was heavy.   Cheritenne was screaming.  And Michel could taste fresh bread.  Sweet with a sprinkle of sugar.

The world shifted.

-

Michel woke, grappling with dizziness and disorientation.  His body remembered his training before his mind did and reached for his sword.  He was on his feet with his guard up before his eyes could register what was before him.

The ruin around them was the typical dusty, silent affair of its ilk. Bluntly hewn stone formed the surfaces and overgrowth lurked in the corners.  The place was stifling.  No access to the outside world to indicate time.  A place of limbo with hideous, leering creatures carved from stone everywhere.  

Aoife sat some paces away.  Her large eyes were hard and bright in the darkness.

“Well done.  Guess you didn’t need my help after all.”

Michel breathed, watching her.

“What was that before?  When you turned into my mother?”

“I needed a way to make you aware of me.”

“But how did you _know_ -”

“It,” Aoife interrupted. “-was not my first time in your dreams.”

Michel felt his muscles drop into the tension of readiness.  His face smoothed and his hands were tacitly aware of the weight and reach of his sword.  Aoife watched him, humorless and eyes gleaming like a cat, predatory.

“Put that down, Michel.  You don’t want to fight me.”

It grew very, very cold suddenly.  Michel’s breath fogged and his legs grew heavy.  He had not seen her perform much magic.  She did quite a few small things because of the arm; maneuvered cutlery, knocked things off high shelves.  But he had not seen her on the field.  He’d heard stories, of course, in the taverns and in the barracks.

Fighting mages was always tricky.  Your best bet was on their lack of physical discipline.  Her balance was poor, he knew that, but she was a good ways away.  No matter how good his reach was, hers would be better. Reaction speed, though…

Michel put down the blade.  He would rather not find out.

Aoife stared at him.  The cold subsided.

“You invaded my mind,” Michel said.

“I did,” she replied.

“Why?”

She breathed through her nose.  She was ruddy, the finer muscles of her face twitching in what Michel knew was anxiety, anger.  For himself, he stilled his rising emotion.

“The eluvians,” she said.

He was not expecting that.  He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

“The eluvians,” he repeated.

“The system that you traveled in with Celene.  That Briala had control of once.  He-...Fen’harel has it now.”

“I don’t understand.  I never heard the passphrase.  I told Sister Nightingale that.  What could I possibly-”

“It’s not the passphrase we need.  Although that would be nice.  And even if you had heard it, it’s changed by now.  I was trying to map the system.”

He waited for her to continue.

“It’s been causing us no end of trouble.  Agents can slip in and out without us ever knowing.  And they’ve been moving the mirrors.  So it’s not like we can just sit and watch for patterns.”

She straightened.

“The Fade, although ever-changing and with its own architecture, frequently corresponds to our world.  Physically.  An eluvian touches this world and the Fade in a-”

She stopped, with a strange expression.

“In a… _particular_ way. You’ve passed through the system.  That leaves a _particular_ impression on you.  On your memories specifically.  Accessing them, I was going to map this- this feeling. I don’t know how else to describe it. Mages feel such things.  Elves do.  And the Mark-”

She idly thumbed her arm. “Well, it made such things especially acute to me.  Even with it gone…  To put it shortly, I’m trying to build a spell to detect when and where the eluvian system is activated.”

“And you can do this with just my memories?”

“I’ll have to,” she said. “But I believe so, yes.”

Michel cooled his features further, staring at her.

“How long have you been planning this?” he asked.

Aoife stared back.

“You’ve planned this all along,” Michel said.

He’d been had.  It shocked him.  Really, it did.  He’d been arrogant; so secure this entire time in his competency at the Game that he never imagined to be played by anyone outside of the Orlesian court.  She’d been schooled by someone.  Using her expressiveness to her advantage, to disguise her deceptions.  Sister Nightingale.  He should have seen it.  The hedging when it came to the purpose of their journey.  Her flippant attitude.

And despite himself, he was growing angry.

“You _used_ me. You lied to me.”

“What did you expect?” Aoife snapped. “How could we trust you?”

“I have been a loyal member of the Inquisition for _years_ -”

“During which you said next to nothing about your life before.  You had friends in Skyhold, but no real confidants.   _By the Void, you were a chevalier!_ And we all know exactly how those are made.”

“I have fought for you and your cause.  Time after time, I have proven my loyalties to Celene are gone.  I have been _nothing but honorable_ ,” Michel was shouting now.  It was utterly unlike him, but this was intolerable.  He was not who he was before, couldn’t they _see_ that?

“Killing a few demons does not fix the lives you’ve destroyed,” Aoife spat.  She was enraged too, and her slight Dalish burr was thickening, venomous. “ _Fenedhis_ , Michel, how can you expect anyone to trust someone like you?  You may not wear a mask anymore, but you are faceless!  You’ve no kith or kin.   _Ma banal_. _You are nothing_.”

“ _But you’ve a history of trusting the kinless, haven’t you_?”

He said it to hurt, and it did.  Her face contorted.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Aoife sighed, turned away. “You got rid of that demon earlier on your own.  You refused it when it offered to take away all your responsibility.  Michel, you’ve lived your whole life being anyone other than yourself.  You served the Academie’s rules, not your own.  You served Celene’s goals, not your own.  You served the Inquisition’s goals.  Even now, you’re still half-expecting me to tell you how to live.  I doubt you even know what you want.  Until you figure that out, and take full responsibility for your actions, no one’s gonna be able to trust you.  And you’ll just remain the way you’ve always been.”

Michel sat down.  He cradled his head in his hands.  She was right.  He felt more emotionally raw than he had in years.  Maybe ever.

His voice croaked as he said, “So you knew everything about me?  All those memories?”

She shrugged. “Most of them.  I knew what to expect, anyway.  Going in.”

They were quiet.

She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry for the lie.  I believed it necessary.  I didn’t know you well-”

“And you still don’t.  Not really,” Michel said. “Don’t apologize for a well-played maneuver.”

“I’m apologizing because it clearly hurt you,” Aoife said firmly.

He paused at that.

“Then,” he replied slowly. “I’m sorry for my words.  They were cruel.”

She nodded. “Mine were as well.”

“Would it help if I cooperated?  For this accessing my memories thing?”

“It would.  But I’d much prefer this to be something you _believe_ in doing.”

“And if it isn’t?”

Aoife looked him in the eye. “I don’t have many alternatives.”

Michel nodded. “Fair enough.  But I think it’s something I should help with.”

“Because you want to?”

“Because I want to.”

She sighed in relief, finally relaxing.  She slumped a little.  A hollow wind flew up from deeper in the ruin.  Aoife kicked the pack sitting by her towards Michel.

“I’m starving.  It’s your turn to cook.”

“I just survived being almost possessed.”

“It’s still your turn to cook.”

Resigned, Michel dug into the pack.

“Why did the demon want me, anyway?  I’m not a mage.”

“Oh. It may have been looking for me.”

“And you were in my head.”

“Yeah. But it’s still your turn to cook.”


End file.
